Holocaust Memorial Day

Israel Remembers

“We will never forget, we will never hide, and we will never stop asking ourselves every morning what we must do to prevent what happened to ever repeat itself.”

So said Israeli President Shimon Peres at the main ceremony marking Holocaust Memorial Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned his audience that anti-semitism is on the rise across the world today, and that insidious forms of Holocaust denial were asserting themselves even in nations that have every reason to remember with circumspection what occurred in Europe 63 years ago.

Iran’s quixotic dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims the Holocaust is a “myth,” and hosted a revisionist Holocaust conference in 2006. Given that Israel and Iran are currently at a heightened state of tensions – complete with bravado from Hillary Clinton about “nuclear umbrellas” and US defense of Israel (which has plenty of its own nuclear weapons) – it’s worthwhile for those who weren’t born when this horror occurred to take a long, hard look at reality.

Yet in Britain, Muslims have joined in commemoration events, which is a step forward, at least for those Muslims who have chosen to participate in the modern world by immigrating to countries like Britain.

A documentary film entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was released just two weeks ago purporting to examine the censorship and discrimination in American academia against biologists and other scientists who criticize the Neodarwinian model of biological evolution. The never-ending Evolution vs. Creationism debates aside, a disturbing focus of the film are images linking Darwinism to Eugenics, and Eugenics to the Holocaust. This has resulted in the explosion of a very strange form of Holocaust denial coming from the ranks of science and academia that is a bit shocking.

Despite the ebbs and flows of partisan politics and election campaigns and candidates who will say or do anything to get themselves elected to power, today is a very good day to stop for a moment and asses our overall sociopolitical situation. We are at war on two fronts (again), and the costs are now coming due in increasing poverty and rising prices for every necessity of life. Will we again stoop to blaming the poor? Will we once again single out the religious for persecution and ‘elimination’? Will we allow the so-called “intellectual elite” to deny the lessons of real history in order to justify a renewed eugenics aimed (as always) at those they see as ‘lesser’ humans?

That seems a serious question to me. The quadrennial international convention of the United Methodist Church meeting on this day in Fort Worth, Texas, issued a historic and detailed resolution deploring the legacy of eugenics in the 20th century, apologizing for Methodist support of eugenic policies in America in the first half of the 20th century, and warning about a resurgence of eugenics in the 21st century. They are the first Christian denomination to issue such a resolution and apology, in recognition of the Holocaust such policies were used to justify.

Perhaps someday we’ll see a similar resolution from some organization of influence in biological/evolutionary science apologizing for the corruption of Darwin’s theory that was used to justify forced sterilization and miscegenation laws in this country and in Europe, and which did in fact get further corrupted by Hitler in his quest for “racial purity.” That too would be a step forward after more than 6 decades. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.

Links:

Marking annual Holocaust Memorial Day
Holocaust Memorial Day
Israel marks Holocaust Memorial Day
Eugenics Apologies

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Filed under Anti-Semitism, Eugenics, History, Memorials, Politics of Hate, Racism, Religion, Science, War Crimes | Comment (0)